Just recovering from the shock.... Anyway, a quick re-cap - we had a wonderful time at Cheltenham with some excellent racing. The Gold Cup didn't go the way everyone expected, as it was supposed to be a dual battle between Kauto Star and Denman but ended up going to the third favourite Imperial Commander.
Back to yesterday's racing - after Harry ran, Doug took him back and fetched Jake as he was in a later race and the race meeting was only 12 miles away. We tried to keep him as calm as possible as last time he went berserk whilst being led down to the paddock. He was a little better this time and although he sweated up a bit, was much better behaved. Ben was given strict instructions not to go to the front too soon and rode the race to perfection until the third from last (same place as Harry made a mistake) Ben was lying third and his horse was going better than any other, the race looked as though it was in the bag, when to our shock, Jake fell. Ben was following the leading pair and rather than risk Jake running out again he tried to jump him in between the two front horses, sadly the gap closed up and because Jake is such a good jumper he jumped on top of the leading horse and lost his footing. Luckily he was unhurt and although Ben has a sore wrist hopefully it will be better soon. Very disappointing, but Jake seemed to be enjoying himself and will definitely win soon.
Today, Lucy was in and we took Frog and Red onto the uphill gallop - Alex Hales's lot were there the same time and they were full of chat about Harry's performance yesterday - they just couldn't believe it! Both the ginger girls went really well and are entered for different races next weekend, as is Dove - Oh dear, I can feel the nerves beginning already.....
Second lot we took Dove and Dream for a long hack, trotting all the way, sadly Dream 'tied up' on the way back but seems fine now. We probably did too much too soon with her.
We have had quite a bit of rain for the last couple of days and it has been much milder - It's just wonderful to see some green in the fields as the grass is now beginning to grow. Spring is just around the corner - YIPPEE!!